Chapter 93: Bountiful Reward.
At once, all of the people in the crowd started cheering regardless of the hidden trouble that awaited them, as the man on the stage had shown them that it was possible to win against someone stronger than yourselves.
"Phantom! Phantom! Phantom!"
They cheered his name altogether, giving him praises and applause.
Felix slowly got up from the ground and faced the crowd, twisting his body as it hurt him a bit from all the thrashing.
"Ah well, it was worth it I guess..."
He awkwardly waved his hand at the crowd, making them more enthusiastic with their cheering, especially a certain group of men led by a fat man and a lanky baldie.
"See!! I told you he\'ll win the match for sure!!"
Exclaimed the bald man while jumping around the place.
The fat man snorted and replied with a smile.
"And when did I deny?"
The other men were also busy cheering out \'Phantom\', raising their voice among the crowd, who gave them weird looks.
On the other hand, Felix walked down the stage toward a secret path that led him away from the crowd where two men were waiting for him.
"Oh Mr.Dealer..."
The man walked over with a smile and patted Felix on his shoulder.
"Good work there. I\'ll tell you about the details later, but before that come here I\'ll introduce you to someone."
Felix nodded as Mr.Dealer pulled him toward the side where a man with an one eye mask stood with a stoic expression.
Maybe it was because Felix hadn\'t experienced meeting many strong people in this world, because the moment he laid his eyes on the man, he could tell that the man was one of the strongest.
Mr.Dealer started.
"This is Sir Graham, a member in the council of the Underworld, just like me. And it looks like he has some interest in you."
Mr.Dealer winked towards Graham and gave them some space, wondering what his friend would say.
Felix looked carefully at the brown haired man and got a feeling that both of them were a bit similar, though he was confused as to why the man was interested in him.
"Nice to meet you, Sir Graham. My name is Phantom."
Graham gave a soft nod with his one eye looking intensely at him and replied.
"Phantom, it seems like you\'ve quite the liking to battles from what I\'ve seen."
Felix wondered what the man wanted as he simply nodded.
"Therefore, why don\'t you come under me and we can explore all the forests of this kingdom, battling all the strong monsters that it has to offer!", his personality suddenly changed from stoic to wild, as the man let out a strong aura of a hunter looking for prey.
Felix widened his eyes at the man\'s offer, but Mr.Dealer\'s reaction was more intense as he quickly jumped between them.
"Wait wait wait!! What the hell Graham?", Mr.Dealer placed Felix behind him and shouted at the one eyed man.
"You asked me to let the two of you meet because you wanted to steal him away from me!!? You can\'t be serious, man!"
He hissed at Graham like a lion protecting it\'s cub.
Graham scratched his head with a casual expression on his face.
"Come on, Dealer. Dont be so possessive. Look at the boy, he seems to be grinning after hearing my proposal."
Mr.Dealer swiftly turned around in disbelief but failed to catch Felix who had a slight smile on his face which he replaced with an innocent look.
"Is he saying the truth? Do you want to leave the great me and work for him now?", Mr.Dealer asked with both his hands on Felix\'s shoulders.
Overwhelmed with all the drama and the intense battle he had just a few moments ago, Felix let out a silent sigh and said.
"No no, of course I wouldn\'t do that. You have been so good to me, and there\'s still so many things we have to do."
Mr.Dealer nodded with a satisfied face, and turned to snort at his friend.
"Well Graham, there you have it. It seems he has no interest in following you in your little picnic."
Graham couldn\'t do anything as he shrugged but said as a last option.
"Then it\'s fine. But if you ever want something exciting away from this boring place, then you can look for me, Phantom."
Felix couldn\'t help but give the man a deep look and nodded slightly.
It would be a lie if he said he wasn\'t interested in doing just that.
Last time he went out of Edenmont city in the name of completing a simple mission, he had experienced quite a good time with the harvesting of skill points from a lot of monsters.
But he couldn\'t do that again as the guild won\'t allow members from rank below one to explore the forest outside the city unless they had some survival skills with themselves.
And the last time was an exception by Miss Elsa who decided to give him a chance seeing how he had handled the goons from the enemy guild.
But after hearing that he had gone against the guild protocol and ventured deep into the forest without their permission, she had denied him from going out of the city again, unless he reached Rank 1, that is.
Even though Graham\'s offer was enticing for him, there were other things he had to do at the moment and many answers he had to find regarding the situation.
Walking closer to Mr.Dealer, Graham whispered a few words before turning around and walking away.
"Goodbye, I hope you\'ll grow stronger the next time we meet, Phantom."
Seeing the man walk away, Mr.Dealer turned back to his usual attitude and guided Felix away from the place.
"Let\'s go. We have to check upon the others, maybe they\'re already back at the base."
They started walking away from the Arena 3 and moved towards the secret exit of the Arena grounds.
Some time later they arrived at Mr.Dealer\'s base and entered inside to find the others already inside.
From their figures, Bellard and Crystal looked fine without much injures, only a bit of dirt around their clothes, but Falcon seemed to have gotten in quite some trouble as he was bleeding from many parts of his body.
As both the group met each other, Mr.Dealer waved his hand and gave all the four a potion with blue liquid inside, and stated with a serious look on his face.
"Drink this to heal your wounds, and then we\'ll talk."
The four of them followed his orders and quickly drank the potion which slowly healed their weak bodies and refreshed them of all fatigue.
After they were done, he started talking.
"I\'m sure the opponents of the three of you also used the supplement called the Last Shot to strengthen themselves from how your states are."
The three nodded as the grey robed figue neared to Mr.Dealer and accounted about the matter briefly.
"The same happened with Phantom too.", he frowned and continued, "Now that they\'ve done something this outrageous, the dark guilds have no reason to continue this farce. That means you guys won\'t have to continue battling their goons any longer."
The four of them showed disappointed yet relieved faces as they contemplated about the matter.
"Don\'t worry. You\'ll be properly compensated for the mishap of this time. Also, you\'ll be treated as vip guests of the underworld whenever you visit here."
Mr.Dealer had a small smile on his face as he concluded.
"Now that everything\'s done, why don\'t we talk about the rewards you\'ll be receiving."
That brought gleeful smiles on everyone\'s faces as they perked up for the bountiful rewards.
Mr.Dealer nodded at the grey robed person who vanished inside into a room of the base and returned back with a case.
He opened the case and stood beside Mr Dealer showing the insides of it to the four.
There were four strange yet beautiful looking blackish gold cards placed inside the case, which emitted a sense of mystery and danger to whoever put their eyes on it.
The four of them took a gulp at the sight of the card, and prasied it\'s design within their hearts.
Mr.Dealer looked pleased with their reactions and coughed once to pull them back.
"Cough-. I present to you the most sought after exclusive status card in the underworld.", he announced which made the four of theirs eyes glitter and continued on.
"Among the cards circulated inside the underworld for transactions and requirements, these belongs to special people only and amounts to a mere hundred."
"You can store as much as money you want in it, which belongs to your personal account in the underworld, and you can also withdraw any amount at any time. It will also get you a discount of fifty percent at every shop in the black market, including the blacksmiths and the alchemists if you show the card to them."
"This card also allows you access the various facilities in the underworld like the Forbidden Library, Training Hall, Secret Emporium etc."
His words made the four widen their eyes in astonishment, as the rewards were too generous, but it wasn\'t the end yet.
"As for the monetary rewards from all the battles, they come down to a total of 230,000 tahl which have been already added into this card."
The amount made the four flabergasted, especially Felix who took a deep breath to prevent himself from shouting.
\'I\'m rich! I\'m rich!\'
The average salary of a man in Edenmont city was around 5k to 10k a month, and for him to get more than 200k in a single week showed that high risk gave high reward.
Mr.Dealer grabbed the cards from the case and gave the four of them one each.
Later, he waved his hands and materialised four purple vials of potion and four red vials of potion.
"And at last, this purple vial is the potion which will release the limiters placed on you.
While this red vial is a rare potion which can help you advance to the first rank."
Everyone stopped checking out their new cards and placed their shining eyes on the red vial, bringing a smile on Mr.Dealer\'s face.
"This wasn\'t supposed to be in the list of rewards, but you could consider it as a compensation for today\'s dangerous situation we placed you in."
Walking towards them, he placed two vials each on their hands and walked back to the front while putting on a serious face.
"The matter with the dark guilds will keep on going bad from now on, which will expose you guys to danger if you wish to participate in it. And for you survive all this, you\'ll have to grow strong, that is the only way you can expect to live in this world. So I hope that you can advance to the first rank as fast as you can."
His words trailed off as he put on a mischievous smile and said.
"Or else you won\'t be able to have any fun in the upcoming upheavel."
Felix scratched his cheek, wondering whether this guy was manipulating everyone into fights or what, as he seemed to be the most excited for what was about to come.
Meanwhile, nobody knew what was actually going on inside Mr.Dealer\'s mind.
\'Hehehehe just wait you fuckers.....nobody\'s going to save you all from me...\'